ISSUE 2.4

Broken Reality

Hi there! Have this track, which should be nice and soothing for such a stressful issue, because oh boy, the articles in this one are kind of a doozy. Well, the first one, really, and the second one if you don't like the idea of UFOs. Here: Garden City Movement - Slightly All the Time. And yeah, I know, I already featured it in my new music newsletter, but hey--it's that good.

This is the one you read. A great piece of web work: animations, graphs, cartoons, and an absolutely frightening piece on just how badly the numbers are stacked against anyone born between 1982 and 2004. All of the jokes about millennials are wrong and fall apart quickly: even glancing at the reality of the situation shows an economy poised to fuck young Americans through forced contract work, "gig" economies, investor greed, skilled trade organization pushback, shit healthcare, a complete gutting of any sort of governmental assistance programs, racist zoning laws, and... jesus christ, I'm only halfway through the article.

I'm relieved(ish) to see that there are solutions provided: voting. Constituency. Becoming a larger political power, as a millennial, and making the choices that matter. The way policy is currently structured was highly intentional, and it can be intentionally reversed, too. Steely-eyed eagle glare into the future and into reality as it is. Doing what you can, spreading your voice. I keep pondering how I'm going to die, but part of me is extremely excited to see if we make it. (Is that weird? I think it's weird. But fitting.)

(One note about it: it's not your eyes fucking with you. The text and background do change color from paragraph to paragraph, sometimes subtly, and it's pretty trippy.)

I swear this isn't becoming a ufology newsletter. But seriously, there's little more to describe "broken reality" than the New York Times putting a UFO-related story on their front page. And, as someone on Twitter said, when you get multiple highly trained, very intelligent people all see the same strangely moving and inexplicably propelled thing which can keep pace with a fighter jet, maybe it's worth paying attention to. And if you can't stomach the idea, think of it this way: how much better would reality be if UFOs were real? (And not that shitty "hur dur it's just something literally unidentified that flies" UFO, but an honest-to-gods hopefully-aliens-or-crazy-interdimensional-goverment-tech UFOs.) Oh, right. So this article is about the Pentagon's super-secret 2007 $22 million project to investigate UFOs, alongside plenty of very wealthy and probably very smart people who are convinced that UFOs are real. Oh man! I'm so excited! Is 2018 going to be even weirder? It's so hard to be unopinionated about this. (Luckily, I don't even pretend to be a journalist.)

Thanks to this Kickstarter for giving me the name of this week's newsletter. But most importantly: this is a dope vaporwave game "where you explore a 3D simulation of The Web." This looks bizarre, and if you're as i n t e r n e t as I am, this is probably right up your alley.

Remember when the internet stopped working because of Mirai, the botnet using unsecured Internet-of-Things devices? Turns out it wasn't a deep state operation at all--it was done by a couple territorial nerds who really wanted their Minecraft server to prosper. It's a wild read as you consider that Mirai was the most powerful botnet ever seen, causing massive infrastructure to buckle and security experts to speculate that it was nation states--when really, it was three smart college kids. It's also a pretty fascinating look into how you track down a botnet. Also also, holy shit--a successful Minecraft server can make $100,000 a month?! Why did I ever stop running a Minecraft server? Also, why did I ever stop doing YouTube vlogs?! I'm never going to stop making Glitchet. You're welcome.

Naturally, the aggressively anti-diversity/LGBT/pro-choice rhetoric is an obvious outcome from the U.S.'s abhorrent administration. But of course, the highlight here is that it's outright censorship, a sign of tyranny and dictatorship. Fun! But here's the real kicker for me: other words not allowed were "entitlement", "evidence-based", and "science-based". Excuse me? You want to censor science, too? Are you trying to get us all to die by supervirus? What the heck is going on?

The author of the artwork sent this to me, and it's intriguing enough that I included it, even though it's a pretty transparent bid for you to buy the print ("please note that the mini and small sizes of the print are too small to be useful for solving the quest. So please buy at least the medium size"). Heck, here, some more text: "The artwork I sell is a collage of many images. Each image corresponds to a word. There are 12 special words and once a person has collected them they will be able to gain access to the Bitcoin wallet where the treasure is stored. This is done by entering the 12 words in the right order into the Bitcoin wallet software called Electrum. It is up to the public to figure out how to connect the images to the special words. Note that it is a very hard quest to solve and it will be almost impossible to solve without the aid of a custom made computer program." It's a pretty wild idea, including a way to check that the Bitcoin is still there, how much is still there, and the artist's artist statement. I love how completely capitalistic it is, while tugging on our desires for that tasty tasty invisi-money. By the way, did you know that Bitcoin may be causing global warming?

Way's Notes

Oh hello there!

Goodness, there's always so much going on, isn't there? I'm a little more overextended on cryptocurrencies than I'd like to be (don't tell my family, friends, or me) but I'm also excited because life seems to be about intense volatility and playing the risk nowadays, anyway. I think the best thing we can do for our own education (and survival) in these dire times is to learn how to beat the risk. Of course... who's got time for that shit? Not me. I'm too busy making newsletters.

Kidding. What else is there to go off of? I feel reality trying to shrink in on me and I expand in response. The only way out is comprehension of our perspectives and the emotions that come with it. Our survival is predicated on our believing in ourselves even in the direst of circumstances. That is, hope. I know, how lame. But it's true. A steely-eyed gaze at the reality of the situation that decides to act, regardless, from a root of hope and humanity. Even if the odds aren't in your favor, you play the game anyway because it's the only one to play (as far as we know)--and you play it straight. Nobody likes a quitter or a sore loser. After all, ridiculous odds are what make space aliens afraid of us.

Anyways. Hug a cat, a dog, yourself, your mom, your lover, a tree, the ground. It's important to be grounded. Literally. Thanks for reading, as always.

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Money for Glitchet goes into paying for server costs, spending more time developing it, and telling it you love it.

Alternatively, if cryptocurrency is more your bag, you can send me meager amounts of cyber money at these wallet addresses:

Bitcoin: 141xzEcXzPtyW45F4tW7tmmJw6LwBrnonD

Bitcoin Cash: 1PjTR8SSbaFpJiJneYkya3KxpDiou6Ty7A

Ethereum: 0x7Cc1aCa2997D9613165b7D398CC6186042672a14

Litecoin: LSLeiZxrymuSXMrZFWLJ43RSxTTdLctGe1

Dogecoin: DJBpHsS2tnwtcQHDYMT8jdfwHhKCXUptyT

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